"The Commission’s complaint filed in the Northern District of Texas alleges that from October 2004 through April 2006, defendants Mihaylov and Markov acquired control of Sniffex — and carried out a $32 million pump-and-dump fraud scheme in concert with the other defendants," the SEC says. "They acquired Sniffex in 2004 as a ‘shell’ company from defendant Lindberg who agreed to provide them 15 million shares of so-called ‘free-trading’ stock."

As ProPublica notes, the scheme worked for a while: "The stock rocketed from 80 cents a share to $6 a share in less than three months. While the stock price increased, the insiders sold. The stock plummeted and now trades at one tenth of a penny."